Scheduling the End of a Life

    When at the beginning of the summer I became so busy teaching riding lessons that I actually had to keep a schedule, I bought a planner and have since been living by it. People want to schedule a lesson: I check in my planner for a space to write it down. I need to get a haircut: I check in my planner, find some time for myself, and write it down. I'm busy. I have a lot of things on my plate. So I have a planner.

    The most recent addition to my planner is an appointment next Tuesday, August 2nd, with my veterinarian.  I stood in the corner of my parents' front pasture with him and my father, talking in a businesslike manner about my work schedule, his availability, etc, and I wrote the appointment in my planner. Next to me was my aging burro Eva, completely unaware that I had just scheduled her death in a convenient spot in my schedule. Just one more thing on the list. 

    Eva is an old burro. She has a severe case of founder, probably brought on by Cushing's Disease, and she has very little time before the rotating bones in her hooves puncture through the skin and completely debilitate her. 

    Usually when people have to put down a pet, they talk about how the pet is a friend, how they remember when the pet was a puppy or kitten or whatnot, and how closely bonded they are. It is not so with me and Eva. In fact, I know very little about her and her life before she came to me, already an elderly and stubborn old burro who was at first reluctant to put up with my ideas. It once took me 40 minutes to lead her through the round pen gate, and she scared off the first farrier who tried to work with her. She now stands and leads quietly, but with her dignity. I am always aware that she has simply chosen to become (mostly) docile in her old age, and that she accepts me as her caregiver without depending on me. 

     Eva was rounded up in the wild by the Bureau of Land Management as part of their regular population control program, and adopted out with two other burros, Banner and Glory. When their adoptive owner abandoned them, they came to me through a BLM agent with whom I happened to be acquainted. I will never know how long Eva was with her old owner or what kind of relationship they had. I will never know what it was like to be rounded up from a wild herd and taken into human society, but I figure it must have been hard if she was already along in years when this all happened. Perhaps Eva had offspring of her own. She may have been a leader among her herd, or she may have fallen at the very bottom. She has had her own long life, and a wealth of experience I will never know. Therefore, I have always had to balance my role as a handler responsible for her training and handling with my role as a youth deferring to an elder. I can't be condescending toward Eva. She's not my baby. 

     It seems strange that after all that has happened in Eva's life, she ended up in a front yard in West Sacramento, with a 21 year old college student scheduling her death into a planner full of horseback riding lessons to teach and personal appointments to keep. Only birth is equivalent in significance and intimacy. I have known Eva for the very last 6 years of her life, and I will be the last major person to have influenced it. I hope my presence has been a good one for her, and I will be giving her as many carrots and peppermints as she could possibly want in her last 5 days before it comes time to cross off one more of those many items written in my planner. Bless you Eva, and good bye.